Beatriz Ilari

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Southern California

In this article, we report on parental perceptions of socio-emotional skills and personality of children who were involved in community-based music and sports extracurricular programs, and a group of children not participating in extracurricular (EC) activities. This study is part of the USC brain and music longitudinal project that investigated th...

Based on a comprehensive analysis of 39 studies published in academic journals in the past decade (2010–2020), this article discusses the strengths of current research and the challenges that lie ahead for researchers interested in conducting longitudinal research on music education and child development. Among the strengths of the reviewed studies...

The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of parenting and parent-child activities in American families with children aged 0–16 after social distance measures were put in place. Through an online questionnaire, we examined the extent to which parental role, age, education, and perceptions of work productivity impacted parent perceptions...

This article examines everyday musical practices and their connections to young children’s learning and development, in and through music. It begins with a discussion of music learning in early childhood as a form of participation and levels of intention in learning. Next, conceptions of child that have dominated early childhood music education dis...

Introduction Music is central in the lives of adolescents. While listening is usually the most common form of engagement, many adolescents also learn music formally by participating in school-based and extracurricular programs. This study examined positive youth development (PYD), school connectedness (SC), and hopeful future expectations (HFE) in...

This article discusses the concept of children’s agency in early childhood music education, integrating perspectives from the sociology of childhood and analysing music teaching and learning contexts in Brazil. Although children are increasingly recognised as catalysts for change in education and policy, there is still a persistent gap between theo...

The question guiding this study is: how can participation in the Guri Santa Marcelina Program affect the development of social skills, cognitive abilities and brain structure in children aged between 6 and 7? Among the observational studies used in the health area, the quasi-experimental design verifies the causal relationship between exposure to a...

The transferability of music education to cognitive and social skills has been explored recently, but its causal effects remain debatable. This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine the impact of a music education program (Guri) on aspects attention, working memory and socioemotional skills in children from underserved communities of São Paulo,...

This study aimed to investigate the influence of attention and intelligence in the prediction of prosocial behavior by direct aggression (proactive or reactive) in school-aged children at risk for behavioral problems. The sample was composed of 64 children aged 6 to 8 years screened for risk of behavioral problems, who were enrolled in a clinical t...

This study aims to investigate the development of pitch-matching, rhythmic entrainment, and socioemotional skills in children who received formal music instruction and other non-music based after school programs. Eighty-three children, averaging 6.81 years old at baseline, were enrolled in either a music, sports, or no after-school program and foll...

In early 2021, early childhood music educators and researchers from six global regions contributed to a book chapter documenting that state of early childhood music education during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over three years have passed since the onset of the global pandemic. This article represents an update from five of the six a...

Investigation of the role of music in early life and learning has been somewhat fragmented, with studies being undertaken within a range of fields with little apparent conversation across disciplinary boundaries, and with an emphasis on preschoolers’ and school-aged children’s learning and engagement. The Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning...

In this paper we report on the inaugural meetings of the Musical Care International Network held online in 2022. The term “musical care” is defined by Spiro and Sanfilippo (2022) as “the role of music—music listening as well as music-making—in supporting any aspect of people's developmental or health needs” (pp. 2–3). Musical care takes varied form...

Introduction Social competence plays a fundamental role in children’s development, and in their functioning at school and in life. Social skills, as learned behaviors that allow children to positively interact with others, are important for success in both academic and peer-group settings. Children’s participation in collective music and other arts...

Interdisciplinary essays on music psychology that integrate scientific, humanistic, and artistic ways of knowing in transformative ways. Researchers using scientific methods and approaches to advance our understanding of music and musicality have not yet grappled with some of the perils that humanistic fields concentrating on music have long articu...

‘In your opinion, what are some important research questions, problems or challenges that scholars in your field of specialization should address in the coming years? What types of studies should be conducted to move your field further? Please justify’. This prompt was posed by the incoming Editor of JSED to the new team of Deputy and Associate Edi...

The Cochlear Implant (CI) Music Hour is a weekly music appreciation session hosted by a major university in the United States. Led by researchers in music and audiology, the CI Music Hour combines research and community engagement. This study primarily examined the relationship between involvement in the CI Music Hour, musicianship and general well...

This position paper aims to raise awareness among educational policymakers, teacher educators, and school leaders around the world about the urgent need to better prepare Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers in music education. Most countries fail to sufficiently train teachers to meet the music-related expectations of contemporary ECE curricul...

The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected education and services geared toward young children and families, including early childhood music programs. While some programs were shut down, others were able to migrate to online formats and outdoor offerings (where allowed). Early childhood music programs are usually collective, with babi...

Prosocial behaviors and executive function are staples of child development. Engagement in music has been associated with enhanced prosocial behaviors and executive function skills in children and youth. Yet, research concerning the role of formal music programs in the development of these important behaviors and skills remains elusive. The aim of...

Although motherhood is often associated with expectations of happiness and fulfillment, for many women it actually brings anxiety and distress. As women engage in daily tasks of childcare, they commonly use music and singing to communicate with and regulate their infant's emotions. Though not widely disseminated in the mental health field, a growin...

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our lives in unimagined ways, families are reinventing daily rituals, and this is likely true for musical rituals. This study explored how parents with young children used recorded music in their everyday lives during the pandemic. Mothers (N = 19) of child(ren) aged 18 months to 5 years living in the U...

Resumo: O trabalho apresenta revisão bibliográfica narrativa sobre música e funções executivas (FE), associadas ao córtex pré-frontal (CPF), em interação com o sistema límbico, ligado ao processamento das emoções, discutindo sua indissociabilidade. O artigo tem por objetivo examinar a literatura recente sobre CPF e FE, estudos correlacionais, longi...

Evidence is accumulating to suggest that music training is associated with structural brain differences in children and in adults. We used magnetic resonance imagining in two studies to investigate neuroanatomical correlates of music training in children. In study 1, we cross-sectionally compared a group of child musician (ages 9-11) matched to non...

In this exploratory study, we describe the learning experiences of adolescents from a social project called Orquestrando Talentos, which offered violin and viola lessons in two high-needs schools for low-income students in Erechim, Southern Brazil. Grounded on the central tenets of popular education, on Paulo Freire’s work, and on earlier studies o...

New technological developments and the popularity of the internet have changed the ways that people learn, listen to, make and teach music. Many music teachers now use a variety of digital tools to enhance their students’ learning in the classroom. However, the use of technology in music education, and particularly videos, is still an under-researc...

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress an immediate dominant response, has been shown to predict academic and career success, socioemotional wellbeing, wealth, and physical health. Learning to play a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities including inhibition and task switching. While music...

Collective music making has been associated with the emergence of prosocial behaviors in children and adults. Yet, the associations between participation in early childhood music education programs and prosocial skills in young children remain elusive. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how children with varied amounts of music pa...

This chapter provides a view of music assessment predicated on a belief that the what of assessment in P-12 music education should include understandings and attitudes about music and culture not typically ascertainable through traditional music assessment prac­ tices that focus on performing ability and knowledge of musical elements. Six vignettes...

This book examines four main areas of music in early childhood: the traditions of music for young children, their capacities for music, the way they make music with others, and constructed and mediated musical childhoods. It studies several themes in detail, including music making in the home and family life, various musical experiences in schools,...

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of research on music and the developing brain. As brain imaging technology becomes more sophisticated, neuroscientists have been able to gain many insights into the developing brain as it perceives and processes musical information. Yet, there is still a fair amount of “misunderstanding, misapprehension, a...

In this chapter, I problematize the issue of musical engagement and well-being in the first eight years of life. I discuss existing research on young children's musical engagement in light of Rosemary Roberts' four components of well-being, namely, physical development, communication, belonging-and-boundaries, and agency. A discussion of the extant...

Evidence suggests that learning to play music enhances musical processing skills and benefits other cognitive abilities. Furthermore, studies of children and adults indicate that the brains of musicians and nonmusicians are different. It has not been determined, however, whether such differences result from pre-existing traits, musical training, or...

In this study, we tracked the development of rhythmic entrainment, prosociality, and theory of mind skills in children attending music and sports programs and in a control group over the course of three years. Forty-five children (mean age at onset = 81 months) drummed in two contextual conditions – alone and social – completed the Reading the Mind...

Several studies comparing adult musicians and nonmusicians have shown that music training is associated with structural brain differences. It is not been established, however, whether such differences result from pre-existing biological traits, lengthy musical training, or an interaction of the two factors, or if comparable changes can be found in...

The aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the development of children’s improvised song endings over the course of two years, through researcher-led tasks. While quantitative data were used to examine the roles of age, biological sex, and music training on children’s improvised song endings and pitch-matching skills, qualitative data w...

Although teachers work constantly with parents, discussions concerning parental roles in children’s music learning are often left at the margins in music teacher training programs. The aim of this article is to offer a review of musical parenting research from an ecological perspective. Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development is...

Given the relationship between language acquisition and music processing, musical perception (MP) skills have been proposed as a tool for early diagnosis of speech and language difficulties; therefore, a psychometric instrument is needed to assess music perception in children under 10 years of age, a crucial period in neurodevelopment. We created a...

This book offers a fresh and diverse perspective on home musical activities of young children from a variety of countries, including; Brazil, Denmark, Greece, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Africa,Taiwan, the UK, and the United States. Narrowing their study to 7-year-olds from middle-class families, the articles in this vol...

In recent years there has been a substantial increase in El Sistema-inspired programs for young musicians. An overwhelming majority of these programs across the USA are centered in underserved communities where access to instrumental music training would otherwise be sparse. Most often, this is due to budget cuts partially or completely being wiped...

Two assumptions that underlie much research in early childhood music education are that music is a social endeavor and musical participation is beneficial to children’s overall social development. As members of cultural and social groups, young children engage with music in a multitude of ways and with different companions. This article examines yo...

Developmental research in music has typically centered on the study of single musical skills (e.g., singing, listening) and has been conducted with middle class children who learn music in schools and conservatories. Information on the musical development of children from different social strata, who are enrolled in community-based music programs,...

Challenges associated with recruitment and retention of participants from underprivileged social communities, in addition to neuroscience researchers' unfamiliarity with these communities, possibly explain the limited number of individuals from these communities who participate in neuroscience research studies. The consequence is a scarcity of data...

The AIRS Test Battery of Singing Skills (ATBSS) is a comprehensive instrument that was designed to acquire data from varied age, cultural and ethnic groups. The aim of the present research was twofold. First, it aimed to examine favorite songs and singing of melodic elements and a familiar tune using tasks from the ATBSS in two underrepresented gro...

Cultural diversity impacts the development and construction of social and musical identities across the lifespan, in a wide range of contexts, including educational settings. This chapter focuses on the development and construction of social and musical identities in childhood through the lens of ethnicity and cultural diversity. The chapter begins...

The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous findings on spontaneous movement and rhythmic engagement with music in infancy. Using the identical stimuli and procedures from the original study, I investigated spontaneous rhythmic movements in response to music, infant-directed speech, and contrasting rhythmic patterns in 30 Brazili...

On a quiet morning, 6-month-old Cecilia turns her head towards a loudspeaker when she hears a familiar tune emanating from the media center. She moves her body up and down, signaling some recognition of the tune. Many miles away, Mitchell, an active 3-year-old, who is playing in the front yard of his nursery school, imitates the sound of a garbage...

Several studies comparing adult musicians and non-musicians have provided compelling evidence for functional and anatomical differences in the brain systems engaged by musical training. It is not known, however, whether those differences result from long-term musical training or from pre-existing traits favoring musicality. In an attempt to begin a...

Caregivers and early childhood teachers all over the world use singing and speech to elicit and maintain infants’ attention. Research comparing infants’ preferential attention to music and speech is inconclusive regarding their responses to these two types of auditory stimuli, with one study showing a music bias and another one indicating no differ...

As a core feature of musical rituals around the world, humans synchronize their movements to the pulse of a shared acoustic patterna behavior called rhythmic entrainment. The purpose of the present study was (a) to examine the development of rhythmic entrainment with a focus on the role of experience and (b) to follow one line of evidence concernin...

Concerted cultivation has been described as a common, urban middle-class practice concerning the enrollment of children in a variety of age-specific activities that may promote the learning of valuable life skills as well as the development of individual abilities (Lareau, 2003). Music is one such activity. This study investigated the relationship...

This article explores the relationship between singing and cultural understanding. Singing emerges in infancy and develops through processes of enculturation and socialization. When we sing songs from diverse cultures, we are granted with opportunities to learn about the cultures of others, and gain a better understanding of our own. Thus, singing...

On a quiet morning, 6-month-old Cecilia turns her head towards a loudspeaker when she hears a familiar tune emanating from the media center. She moves her body up and down, signaling some recognition of the tune. Many miles away, Mitchell, an active 3-year-old, who is playing in the front yard of his nursery school, imitates the sound of a garbage...

This research project, undertaken by an international collaborative team of researchers, set out to explore everyday music in the home among seven-year-olds, in diverse international locations. Each researcher visited one or two seven-year-olds at their home to collect information about their everyday musical activities and experiences. The data wa...

The purpose of this study was to investigate musical parenting of infants and toddlers in Brazil. Forty-three Brazilian mothers were interviewed on musical experience and preferences, beliefs and uses of music with their children. Results suggest that mothers appear to be caught between two main forces: the natural humanurge to interact, communicat...

This article discusses the emergence of a community of practice of student-teachers in music in a Brazilian university outreach program called Musicalização Infantil. It starts with a short introduction to the concept of community of practice. Next, a brief history of the program is presented to contextualize the study, followed by a description of...

As we walk through the promenade during the busy Thames Festival on a sunny yet breezy London afternoon, we are suddenly attracted by a live and vivacious song performed by a school jazz band that is emerging from one of the stands. Having just come from a conference on music learning and development, anything that relates to music and children ins...

This study investigated infant listening preferences for two versions of an unfamiliar Chinese children's song: unaccompanied (i.e., voice only) and accompanied (i.e., voice and instrumental accompaniment). Three groups of 5-, 8- and 11-month-old infants were tested using the Headturn Preference Procedure. A general linear model analysis of varianc...

Primeiro volume de uma série de mapeamentos de domínios, metodologias e tendências da pesquisa em música no Brasil, oferecendo perspectivas para o desenvolvimento de novas áreas, examinando a aplicabilidade de novas teorias e lançando novos olhares sobre teorias e objetos de pesquisa já não tão novos.

Inspired by ideas that Levi-Strauss (1955) presented in Tristes Tropiques, the author discusses music and early childhood in Brazil from educational, historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives. She begins with a short history of early childhood education in Brazil, including changes in educational policies, teacher preparation, and...

Several studies have investigated how children of different ages respond to diverse musical styles. Age seems to be a determinant factor in the development of musical preferences. Although many teachers advocate the use of a wide variety of musical styles at different school levels, most of them seem to rarely include 20 th century 'art' music in t...